12
"Where's Shelley today?" Crispy asked from the kitchen doorway.
"She's gone home for a while — to punch out her sister-in-law, probably," Jane answered, stacking the last of the breakfast plates in the dishwasher.
"And what's become of Edgar?"
"He needed a few things from the grocery store. I told him to go on and I'd clean up."
"Want some help?"
"No, but I'd love company. There's some coffee left, if you'd like."
Crispy poured herself a cup and sat down with it and a cigarette. "Want one?"
"When I'm done," Jane said. "I'm trying to cut down to six a day. But I went off the rails last night and smoked four in a row because I couldn't sleep."
"I wish I could stop entirely," Crispy said.
"Unfortunately, it takes more than wishing," Jane replied.
"Listen, I'm sorry I was such an ass this morning about the underwear. It was just such a nasty trick and it really embarrassed me."
Jane put a dishcloth in the bottom of the sink and laid the crystal juice glasses on their sides on it before running hot water over them. "Crispy, answer me honestly, okay? Haven't you been the one playing the tricks?"
"God's truth, no!"
Jane poured dishwashing soap over the glasses and began to wash them. "But when I first met you, you implied that you were here just to cause trouble."
"Yes, but it soon became apparent to me that Lila was going to cause quite enough without any help from me," Crispy said wryly.
"But Lila wasn't responsible for the underwear. Or that antique thing of Pooky's being stolen and hidden."
"No…."
"Then who do you think it is playing the tricks?"
"I really haven't the faintest idea. Mimi, maybe?"
"Surely not! She was really angry about that thing of Pooky's being taken. She's the one who made everybody look for it."
"How do you know that wasn't a good act?" Crispy asked. "She's quite an actress, you know. Always had the lead in the school plays. We did Oklahoma our junior year and she played the goody-two-shoes role. Five minutes into it, you forgot all about her Chinese features and believed she was that girl. She played Lady Macbeth just as well."
"Is that so?" Jane said. That was interesting information, and put her conversation with Mimi the previous afternoon in'a whole different light. Jane had accepted everything Mimi had said about the others without question. Maybe she should get a second opinion.
"Tell me about the others," she said, carefully rinsing the crystal glasses and setting them on the counter on a dry towel.
"The kind version or the catty version?"
"Have you got two versions for everybody?"
Crispy laughed. "No, I've only got the catty version. Well, you know everything I know about Kathy."
"I mean what they were really like in high school. Not now."
"Kathy in high school — hmmm, a spoiled rich girl with too much energy and intelligence, looking for something to focus it on that would make people pay attention to her and drive her parents crazy at the same time. She had attention and respect and love all mixed up and thought they were the same thing."
Jane finished with the glasses and came to sit down at the kitchen table with Crispy, who pushed a leather cigarette case and silver lighter toward her. "You've thought about them a lot, haven't you?" Jane said, taking a long drag.
"I did then. You probably won't believe this, but I was really shy and insecure then."
"Come on."
"I was. I thought I was the most boring person in the world — which was probably quite true — and so I paid a lot of attention to everybody else. Trying to decide which one of them I wanted to be when I grew up, I guess. Living a vicarious life through the others. I did have the sense, thank God, to know I didn't want to be Kathy, though."
"Who did you want to be?"
"Either Beth or Lila," Crispy answered without hesitation. "That's odd, considering the way Lila turned out, but I did admire her then. She was a snooty little bitch, but she carried it off with style. Sort of like a young Katharine Hepburn. She always wore clothes that looked like they were hand-me-downs from a maiden aunt, but she wore them with such self-assurance that I envied her. I thought she seemed much more mature than the rest of us. I suppose it was
really only discontent, but it seemed like sophistication
to me."
"You admired her more than Beth?" "Not more. Just in a different way. Beth was absolutely perfect, but sort of remote, without any interesting sharp edges. Like she was always concentrating very hard on not turning into her mother. Poor Mrs. Vaughn, if she was a 'Mrs.' She tried so hard to fit in for Beth's sake. Came to all the Mother's Meetings and things, but always with too much makeup and clouds of cheap perfume and a voice a little too shrill. Beth was the kind of girl who probably didn't dare make very close friends with anybody because then she'd have to let them come to her house like friends do. And that might have wrecked her ambitions. Still, I admired her style and grace and brains." "What about Pooky? What was she like?" "Dim as a twenty-five-watt bulb. But gorgeous. You'd never know it now, but she was really stunning. The kind of person that strangers in the street stop to look at with amazement and admiration." "I know. I saw her picture in the yearbook." " — but so stupid. I had a whole slew of stories saved up to embarrass her with, but when I saw her ruined face, I just didn't have the heart. I was prepared to deflate her vanity, but life's done that to her already. She was the kind of person they tell dumb blond jokes about now. The boys were crazy about her. Naturally. She was a pretty good athlete, too. She could run like the wind, and do acrobatics, and dance. She was head cheerleader and Prom Queen, but you could have used her skull to drain lettuce. It must have been devastating to her to lose her looks, with nothing to fall back on like brains or skills or personality. It's actually pretty brave of her to have come to the
reunion. She's actually quite a nice woman now that she's not beautiful."
"Watch it," Jane said. "Your cattiness is slipping."
Crispy grinned and lighted another cigarette. "Then let's talk about Avalon. That'll bring it back."
"You didn't like her?"
"What was to like? She was an egotistical wimp. Still is. She sort of crept around like a morbid shadow, drawing her oh-so-precious little pictures, looking like she was always on the brink of tears. She was the kind of shy person who's totally self-absorbed, always seeing reasons to get their feelings hurt and imagining that people are talking about them when nobody even knows who they are. And she loved the opportunity to be the martyr. She's still doing it. Didn't you hear her going on and on about all her dear little handicapped foster children?"
"How come she got into the Ewe Lambs? I thought they were a pretty exclusive group. She doesn't sound like she fit the image."
"She didn't, but every year they had to have a token artsy-fartsy person. That was to give the illusion of democracy. Sort of like having a bulldog as a pet— to suggest that you could look beneath the surface appearances. She nearly drove Ted crazy." 'Crispy suddenly fell silent.
"Ted—?" Jane said encouragingly.
Crispy looked away. "Ted was my friend. My only real friend," she said. "We grew up together, like a brother and sister. He was an only child and so was I. All the others were after him as a boyfriend, a date that would give them status. They were all using him, even Beth. Especially Beth. But I was the one he talked to, really talked to. I sometimes think that if he hadn't died, he and I might have eventually—
well, that's stupid. He did die, the son of a bitch!"
"I'm surprised you don't hate Beth," Jane said.
"Oh, you've heard the story about how she broke his poor, fragile heart and he couldn't face life, huh? Well, he didn't kill himself over her," Crispy said.
"No?"
"No. He didn't care that much for her anymore. The bloom had gone off the rose, as they say. He knew she was only dating him because
of his dad, because of the judge's status in the legal community."
Or so you'd like to believe, Jane thought.
"No, whatever the reason was, it wasn't Beth."
"Then what was it?"
"I've never known. I'm not so sure he did commit suicide, not deliberately."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, they'd broken up at the prom. He probably was pretty shocked and insulted that she'd dumped him before he got around to dumping her. He got drunk and angry and came home. I think maybe he just meant to come home for a while — maybe go back over to her house later and tell her off or something. Or maybe come over and talk to me about it. Anyway, he could have left the car engine running and gone upstairs to get something. And if he changed his mind, and forgot about the car or just passed out…"
"But didn't Avalon say she was drawing the carriage house when she heard the car engine start? Remember, when she was showing us the picture she brought along? She said she'd done it that night."
"Oh, she was just being melodramatic," Crispy said. "And even if she did hear him start the car, the same thing could hold true. He came home for something, started to leave and remembered something else he wanted to go back upstairs for."
"I've got to get on with my jobs," Jane said. She'd suddenly heard all she could stand to hear about Dead Ted. The thought of a teenaged boy, the same age as her own Mike, dying, by accident or on purpose, was too depressing to contemplate.
"I'm sorry. I've offended you."
"No, you haven't," Jane assured her. "It's just that I promised Edgar I'd help him and he'll be back any minute. I need to get busy."
"Thanks for listening. I'm sorry I unloaded on you." She laughed. "You weren't one of the ones I intended to come here to punish for not recognizing my sterling qualities when I was a fat, seventeen-year-old lump."
"Is that why you came to the reunion?"
"Pretty much so. But someone else seems to have usurped my role as dispenser of overdue justice."
"You mean killing Lila?"
"Lila — and all the tricks."
"If you had to guess—" Jane began.
"I wouldn't guess," Crispy said firmly. "And a smart person like you won't either. It could be a dangerous game."
It wasn't until she was ascending the stairs with her cleaning materials that Jane remembered that she meant to ask Crispy what had been in Lila's notebook.
13
Pooky had just started cleaning up her room when Jane arrived to do it. "Go on, visit with your friends," Jane said. "I'll do this for you."
"Let me help you. I'd rather. They're all in Kathy's room, talking about politics and things. I'm not as clever as everybody else on that stuff."
"Then let's start with the bed," Jane said. "I've got fresh sheets here. I think I'd prefer to miss a political discussion with Kathy, too. I don't blame you."
"It's not that I don't know about other things," Pooky said, taking off the bedspread and folding it with excruciating neatness even though they were going to put it right back on the bed. "I used to be a travel agent and I went lots of places. Acapulco, Hawaii, the French Riviera…"
The culture meccas, Jane thought.
"Have you been to those places?" Pooky asked.
"Some of them. My father is with the State Department and I grew up all over the world. I've lived in about seventeen different countries."
"Then you know what I mean. You can't travel without learning a lot. But I've never liked that stuff Kathy is always talking about. It just depresses me. Like nature programs. I used to really like nature programs — about penguins and flowers and things — but now when you watch them, they just make you feel awful. They're always all about how terrible people are ruining things. Oil spills and ozone and rain forests. I mean, what can / do about it? They never tell you that. They just make you feel horrible, then there's a commercial."
Jane looked at her with surprise. "You know… you're right!" She didn't mean to sound quite so astonished.
But Pooky didn't take offense. "Kathy's like that. She's always mad about people who aren't doing the right thing, but she doesn't talk about what the right thing is. She was always like that. Against stuff instead of for anything. I mean, what good is that?"
"So she hasn't changed since high school?"
"No, nobody has really. Except Mimi. Isn't she beautiful?"
"She sure is."
"She was real cute in school, too. But she's grown up real nice. Peaceful and polite. She was sort of wild and — I don't know the word—"
"Frenzied?" Jane guessed.
Pooky was pleased. "Yes, that's it. That's what I meant."
"What about Avalon? Has she changed?" Jane asked, putting new cases on the pillows while Pooky made hospital corners on the sheets.
"Oh, not at all. Avalon's wonderful. She's so talented. Did you see that picture she drew of the carriage house? Wasn't that fantastic? I hoped she'd give it to me, but I guess she didn't understand how much I liked it and she gave it to that man Edgar who owns this house. I wonder if I asked him—"
"I don't think I would if I were you. He showed it to me this morning. He loves it."
"Oh, that's too bad. Well, maybe she'll make another one for me. Avalon's really nice, too. That's what's great about her. Did you know she's got foster children. She takes handicapped ones that nobody else wants."
"I'd heard that. Was she so nice in school?"
"Well, I don't know. I don't remember her all that well, except that we had a home ec class together. She was really quiet, see, and I was real popular and busy. But in home ec she made this fantastic dress. It was all sort of scraps of fabric, you know, like pretty little rags, sort of here and there. She didn't even have a pattern, can you believe it? Greens and blues and purples. I think there were some ribbons, too — she should have gone into fashion design. Now, that's a great field. She'd have been famous if she'd done that."
Jane smiled. Kathy wanted Avalon to use her talents to better the world; Pooky wanted her to better the state of fashion. "What does Avalon do, besides take care of the children?"
"She has a little craft store down in the Ozarks. She sells things that ladies there make, plus her own things. Quilts and like that."
"Somebody said she did drugs," Jane said. Actually both Lila and Kathy had suggested it.
Pooky nearly dropped the bedspread she'd picked back up. "No! I can't believe that anybody'd think a thing like that! I'll bet it was Lila who said that. Lila is — was — a big liar."
"Here, let's put that spread back. Lila seems to have threatened a couple of people. Did she threaten you?"
Pooky gave the spread a fierce flap and, as it settled into place, said, "No! No, there's nothing to threaten me about." Her ruined face was set in harsh lines and
her hands were trembling. It was obviously a lie.
Jane's curiosity was overridden by guilt. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
"You didn't! I'm not upset! Now, where are the towels? Oh, I see. I'll put these away. And give me some of that cleaner stuff!"
She stomped into the bathroom and Jane could hear her crashing around, although how she did any crashing armed primarily with towels was a mystery in itself.
Jane dragged the vacuum in from the hall and shoved it around until Pooky came back out. "I'm really sorry," Jane repeated. "It must be hard on you, staying here where Ted lived. Somebody told me you dated him." She figured this line served the dual purpose of giving Pooky an excuse to be nervy and might also elicit some interesting information.
She was right on the first. Pooky fell on the justification as if it were a life raft. "It is strange to be here. I really hadn't thought about Ted much for the last few years and now I keep remembering him all the time. He was really a neat guy. Smart and so good-looking! Captain of the football team and president of the Latin Club. That was a prestigious thing, the Latin Club. I don't think kids take Latin these days. Just as well. I never did get why anybody'd care
about a language you couldn't talk in. But I bet Ted could have talked it if he wanted to."
"Did you date him for a long time?" Jane asked. She wound up the vacuum cleaner cord.
"Most of our sophomore year. And part of our junior year. Then Ted — well, we—decided it would be better to date other people, too. It was the right decision. I mean, we were just kids, after all." But all these years later the pain was still in her voice.
"Then he dated Lila—" Jane said.
"Oh, just a couple of times. She was such a cold fish, though. Always criticizing other people. Guys don't like that, you know. They like a girl who's cheerful and fun, not somebody who's always whining and complaining. No, mainly he dated Beth."
"Mainly? Did you two still go out together?"
"Sometimes," Pooky hedged. "But I didn't want Beth to know. It would have hurt her feelings. And I wouldn't have done that for the world."
"You liked Beth?"
"We were best friends. She had her jobs and her studying and I had my cheerleading. That took a lot of time. But we spent all the time we could together." This was so unlikely as to be impossible, but apparently Pooky had convinced herself it was true.
Pooky picked up the bottle of window cleaner and spritzed it on the mirror. Jane noticed that Pooky managed to clean the mirror without looking into it. She was a brave person, like Crispy said, Jane realized. She found herself thinking, brains aren't everything.
"But you must have been awfully upset when Ted killed himself because she broke up with him."
Pooky laughed. "Oh, he didn't kill himself over her."
"Then what was it? Why did he do it?"
Pooky turned, looking troubled. "I don't know. I never could figure it out. Maybe he just couldn't stand it that we were all growing up and going away. Or maybe he was just drunk and feeling sorry for himself. Everybody feels sorry for themselves sometimes. I don't know."
"Crispy thinks it might have been an accident, not suicide," Jane said, starting to gather up her cleaning equipment.
"An accident? But how? Oh, like he didn't mean to start the car then go back upstairs? I don't see how. But maybe — that would be wonderful if it was an accident. I mean, not wonderful, but not so bad."
The Class Menagerie jj-4 Page 9
